Safi Faye

Infobox actor
name = Safi Faye


imagesize =
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birthdate = Birth date and age|1943|11|22
birthplace = Dakar, Senegal
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Film director, ethnologist
yearsactive = 1972–present
spouse =
domesticpartner =
website =
awards =

Safi Faye (b. November 22 1943) is a Senegalese film director and ethnologist.Petrolle, p.177] She was the first Sub-Saharan African woman to direct a commercially distributed feature film. She has directed several documentary and fiction films focussing on rural life in Senegal.

Biography

Early life and education

Safi Faye was born in 1943 in Dakar, Senegal to a Serer family. Her parents were from Fad'jal, a village south of Dakar.Foster, p.130] She attended the Normal School in Rufisque and receiving her teaching certificate in 1962 or 1963, began teaching in Dakar.cite web
last = Pfaff
first = Françoise
authorlink =
title = Safi Faye
work =
publisher = FilmReference.com
date =
url = http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Du-Fr/Faye-Safi.html
accessdate =2008-05-04 ]

In 1966 she went to the Dakar Festival of Negro Arts and met French ethnologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch. He encouraged her to use film making as an ethnographic tool. She had an acting role in his 1971 film "Petit à petit".Ukadike, p.29] Faye has said that she dislikes Rouch's film but that working with him enabled her to learn about filmmaking and cinéma-vérité.Spaas, p.185] In the 1970s she studied ethnology at the École pratique des hautes études and then at the Lumière Film School. She supported herself by working as a model, an actor and in film sound effects. In 1979, she received a PhD in ethnology from the University of Paris. From 1979–1980, Faye studied video production in Berlin and was a guest lecturer at the Free University of Berlin.Schmidt, p.286] She received a further degree in ethnology from the Sorbonne in 1988.

Film career

Faye's first film, which she also acted in, was a 1972 short called "La Passante" ("The Passerby"), drawn from her experiences as a foreign woman in Paris. [Harrow, p176] It follows a woman (Faye) walking down a street and noticing the reactions of men nearby. Faye's first feature film was "Kaddu Beykat" which means "The Voice of the Peasant" in Wolof and was known internationally as "Letter from My Village" or "News from My Village". She obtained financial backing for "Kaddu Beykat" from the French Ministry of Cooperation. Released in 1975, it was the first feature film to be made by a Sub-Saharan African woman to be commercially distributed and gained international recognition for Faye.Ukadike, p.30] On its release it was banned in Senegal.cite web
title = Africa Beyond
publisher = BBC
date = 2007
url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/africabeyond/events/200703/
accessdate =2008-05-10 ] In 1976 it won the FIPRESCI Prize from the International Federation of Film Critics (tied with "Chhatrabhang") and the OCIC Award.

Faye's 1983 documentary film "" follows a 39 year-old woman called Sélbe who works to support her eight children since her husband has left their village to look for work. [Thackway, p. 153] Selbé regularly converses with Faye, who remains off-screen, and describes her relationship with her husband and daily life in the village. [Thackway, p. 154]

Faye's films are better known in Europe than in her native Africa as a result of them rarely being shown in Africa.

Personal life

Faye is divorced and has one daughter. She lives in Paris.

Filmography

*1972: "La Passante" ("The Passerby")
*1975: "Kaddu Beykat" ("Letter from My Village")
*1979: "Fad'jal" ("Come and work")
*1979: "Goob na nu" ("The harvest is in")
*1980: "Man Sa Yay" ("I, Your Mother")
*1981: "Les âmes au soleil" ("Souls under the Sun")
*1983: "" (or "Selbe and So Many Others")
*1983: "3 ans 5 mois" ("Three years five months")
*1985: "Racines noires" ("Black Roots")
*1985: "Elsie Haas, femme peintre et cinéaste d'Haiti" ("Elsie Haas, Haitian Woman Painter and Filmmaker")
*1989: "Tesito"
*1996: "Mossane"

References

Notes

Bibliography

*cite book
last = Foster
first = Gwendolyn Audrey
authorlink = Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
title = Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary
publisher = Greenwood Publishing Group
date = 1995
pages = 130–132
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=-kJHa7KqnQ4C
isbn = 0313289727
*cite book
last = Harrow
first = Kenneth W.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema
publisher = Rodopi
date = 1997
pages = 176–181
url = http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IouwFbVrjPUC
isbn =9042001437
*cite book
last = Petrolle
first = Jean
authorlink =
coauthors = Virginia Wright Wexman
title = Women and Experimental Filmmaking
publisher = University of Illinois Press
date = 2005
location =
pages = 177–192
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=bs7Ll5K5oIsC
isbn =0252030060
*Citation
last =Schmidt
first =Nancy J.
author-link =
date =1999
publication-date =
contribution =Sub-Saharan African Woman Filmmakers
contribution-url =
editor-last =Harrow
editor-first =Kenneth W.
editor-link =
title =African Cinema: Postcolonial and Feminist Readings
publication-place =
publisher =Africa World Press
pages =
url =http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kRR2fBv2NhUC
*cite book
last = Spaas
first = Lieve
authorlink =
title = The Francophone Film: A Struggle for Identity
publisher = Manchester University Press
date = 2001
pages = 185–188
url = http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=suDmAWP6VzoC&pg=PA185
isbn =0719058619
*cite book
last = Thackway
first = Melissa
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-Saharan Francophone
publisher = James Currey Publishers
date = 2003
pages = 151–155
url = http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=__PzjrAIUtYC
isbn =0852555768
*cite book
last = Ukadike
first = Nwachukwu Frank
authorlink =
coauthors = Teshome H. Gabriel
title = Questioning African Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers
publisher = University of Minnesota Press
date = 2002
pages = 29–40
url = http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=G-JqZSK9T6IC
isbn =0816640041

External links

*imdb name|0269682|name=Safi Faye